Has a post grade in Population and Development Policies and Programmes from CELADE, and graduation in Sociology from the Universidad de Chile. He is currently Research assistant at CELADE, and is a member of Council Board of ALAP. Areas of interest are internal migration, urbanization, residential segregation, second demographic transition, sexual and partnership behaviour, adolescent fertility, population and development.

Suzana Cavenaghi
National School of Statistical Science (ENCE) at the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). Brazil

Researcher and professor at the National School of Statistical Science (ENCE) at the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). Currently is the coordinator of the Post-Graduation Program at ENCE/IBGE, Editor of the Brazilian Journal on Population Studies (REBEP). Main research areas of interest are reproductive health, fertility, family and gender studies, population and health, statistical demography, spatial statistics, geo-processing in demography, data bases and social indicators, and public policies analysis and evaluation. Has a Ph.D. in Sociology/Demography from the University of Texas at Austin, specialization in Demography from CELADE, and graduation in Statistics and Applied Mathematics from the State University of Campinas.

Adolescent and youth fertility and social inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean: what role has education played?

Jorge Rodríguez-Vignoli, Suzana Cavenaghi

Abstract

According to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) monitoring system, Latin America and the Caribbean is the region that presents the highest adolescent and youth fertility rate (for women aged 15-19), behind only Sub-Saharan Africa. During the 1990’s, several Latin American and Caribbean countries had an increase in this rate. The fertility rates were not only high, but did not decrease and were related to large social inequalities. Besides presenting high level and resistance to the decline, high early fertility concerns due to its large social inequality. This paper aims to offer a detailed and updated description of trends in fertility and motherhood among 15-19 year olds and its socioeconomic inequality in Latin American countries by using the most recent demographic census microdata. Additionally, given the theoretical and policy importance that education plays in adolescent reproduction, this paper aims to determine whether the decreases in fertility rates are due to advances in education. The results show that in last decade, most of the countries have experienced a decline in adolescent fertility and motherhood percentages, most of it due to the increase in enrollments rates in secondary education, as our exercise of direct standardization shows. Regarding the effects of education, the higher the schooling the lower the risk of being a mother during adolescence. However, the protective effect of education is declining insofar as its threshold is increasing. This occurs because, in the past, entering high school (HS), and above all getting a HS diploma implied much lower probabilities of being an adolescent mother than dropping out before HS. Nowadays this difference is narrower. These findings improve the projections of fertility indicators and its inequalities in the region, which in turn are invaluable for promoting public policies based on human and reproductive rights.